Bacman-Eckmann family. Collection

Abram alias Albert Bacman was born in Rezina, Romania, on 12 June 1906 as the son of David Bacman (born on 15 February 1877 in Markowska, Romania) and Haia Ghelfand (born on 14 March 1879 in Sîrcova, Romania). In 1923 Abram migrated to Belgium where his older brother Szmul alias Sam Bacman (born on 8 September 1904 in Rezina, Poland) had settled in 1921. A year later, in 1924, parents David and Haia also arrived in Belgium. The family settled in Liège where both Abram and Szmul enrolled in science courses at the local university. In the late 1930s Abram fell in love with the daughter of one of their neighbours: Sara Eckmann. Sara was born in Zurich, Switzerland on 30 November 1914 as the daughter of Wolf Eckmann (born on 22 October 1884 in Wloclawek, Poland) and Ida Friedman (born on 10 June 1886 in Warsaw, Poland). Sara and her parents had migrated from Basel to Liège in 1927, where Sara’s older brother Isaak alias Isidore (born on 19 July 1912 in Basel, Switzerland) had already settled. After father Wolf Eckmann was expelled from Belgium in 1931, Isaak took care of the family with the help of oldest brother Michael alias Max Eckmann (born on 5 March 1911 in Basel, Switzerland) who had stayed behind in Switzerland in 1927 to study medicine. In May 1940 Nazi-Germany invaded Belgium. By that time, Abram’s parents David and Haia Bacman-Ghelfand had retired. Szmul was earning a living as an industrial agent and Abram had become a wood dealer. Sara Eckmann’s father Wolf had been able to join his family in Belgium but had passed away in Liège on 20 November 1939. The first two years of the war, the Bacman and Eckmann families obeyed the anti-Jewish decrees. Abram Bacman was persuaded by rabbi Joseph Lepchivcher to become a member of the financial committee of the Liège branch of the Association of Jews in Belgium. It was Abram’s task to find funding to support needy members of the local Jewish community. In June 1942 Abram left the Association of Jews and on 26 July 1942 he, his parents, his brother and Sara Eckmann attempted to illegally cross the Belgian-French border, using false IDs. They were, however, arrested on the train in Heer-Agimont and were held for three days at the Gendarmerie in Givet. After interrogation, they revealed their true identity. On 1st August 1942 the Bacman brothers were transferred to the Breendonk camp where they remained for six weeks, while David, Haia and Sara were sent ahead to the Dossin barracks in Mechelen. As Romanian citizens, David and Haia Bacman-Ghelfand were initially exempted from deportation. Sara was also excluded from the deportation list presenting herself as a nurse to the guards. She was able to save a fellow inmate from deportation: Lotte alias Lottie Katscher. Sara convinced the German guards to add Lottie to the group of Werkleute, Jewish detainees put to work at the Dossin barracks. Sara and Lottie thus both became members of the medical staff, taking care of their fellow-detainees under difficult circumstances, and would remain friends for the rest of their lives. As Sara learned a lot about what was going on in the camp she was repeatedly able to warn families outside the camp to change hiding places because they had been denounced. Upon their arrival at the Dossin barracks on 6 September 1942 the Romanian brothers Szmul and Abram Bacman had already become Werkleute. Their accounting and commercial skills earned them a position in the storeroom. They were responsible for the distribution of the daily rations and for the management of the camp warehouse: the room where rare goods such as tools, soap and clothes were stored. All these items had been confiscated from arriving detainees or were brought in by trucks after the arrest of a family and the plundering of their homes. From their position as stock keepers, the Bacman brothers – known to the other detainees as “Delhaize brothers” – were able to help others by handing out larger portions, smuggling out messages via non-Jewish staff members and providing deportees with tools to escape from the train. As the only detainee with knowledge about woodwork, Abram was allowed to leave the camp several times in the Autumn of 1942 to buy wood to build bunk beds for the dormitories. His brother and parents were held hostage to assure he would come back. Abram and Szmul Bacman as well as Sara Eckmann were liberated at the Dossin barracks by the British troops in the night of 3 on 4 September 1944. On 21 December 1944 Abram and Sara married at the Liège city hall. Abram’s parents were not present: David Bacman and Haia Ghelfand had been deported from the Dossin barracks to Auschwitz-Birkenau via Transport XX on 19 April 1943 and didn’t survive. After finding a residence, Abram and Sara took in Sara’s mother Ida Friedman since Sara's brother Isaak had not survived deportation from the Dossin barracks to Auschwitz-Birkenau via Transport II on 11 August 1942. Sara subsequently gave birth to two daughters: Claire Mireille on 5 July 1945 and Viviane Danielle on 30 July 1948. Abram and Szmul Bacman started their own lumber company “Bacman Frères” in Liège. In 1954 the Bacman-Eckmann family emigrated from Belgium to Canada, where Abram established a successful lumber mill near Montreal. Abram Bacman passed away at an unknown date, his beloved wife Sara Eckmann in 2008. They left behind two daughters, as well as numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Claire Kaufman first visited Kazerne Dossin in 2017 to research the history of her family. In honour of her parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren she donated copies of items from her family archive to Kazerne Dossin in 2018 and 2019. These items include photos of objects saved by neighbours after the family’s arrest and recovered by the Bacman-Eckmann family after the war.

Claire Kaufman-Bacman, daughter of Abraham Bacman and Sara Eckmann, 2018-2019